Winter Elves of Skandahar

[Havard]

Wouldn't these winter elves be the same as the laments from the Age of the Wolf book?

Ohh, that is a good observation!

The short answer is no. When I came up with my Winter Elves, I was not thinking in terms of what is described in the Age of the Wolf. From what I understand, the situation for the elves during the Age of the Wolf is that a group of Outer Planar Elves (from the plane called the Elf Realm) have taken over Ringlo Hall, the old capital of the Redwood. This group is called the Winter Court and were drawn to the mortal plane as a reaction to the reunification of the Cumasti and Westryn. So we went from one division to another.  The Winter Court are ruled by the Grey King and his queen. I think the queen is supposed to be the queen from the Westryn/Cumasti split, but I could be wrong about this. Anyway, this situaton has shattered the elven nation once again and these Winter Court followers are extremely dedicated zealots bordering on madness. The queen's most loyal servitors are called Black Ice Maidens and the main group are referred to as Laments. 

The idea behind my Winter Elves was mainly to have a new group of elves who live north of Blackmoor. Athough not necessarily canonical, there is a widespread fan idea that the elven realm used to be much larger and that the rise of waters caused by the Egg of Coot caused the northern elven lands to be separated from the rest. We have never really earlier explored what happened to those lands. Did the elves decide to migrate south to join with their kin or were their old lands overtaken by evil? My idea is that there was a separate group left behind in the North living close to the lands of Skandaharians and other groups. 

Now, I find very interesting about your comment is if there could be ways for us to combine these ideas. I get the impression from Age of the Wolf that the Winter Laments are designed to be antagonists in the campaign and and enemies of Blackmoor. I don't really want that for my Winter Elves. I have linked them to the godess Sacwhynne who seems to be absent from Age of the Wolf? I could see the Outer Planar Winter Court playing a role in this version of the Winter Elves too however. And maybe there are other shared elements we could use?

-Havard